Book Review: In Green's Jungles

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

In Green's Jungles     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Gene Wolfe
Class/Genre:
Series: Book of the Short Sun # 2
Tor, Aug 2000, $24.95, 384 pp.

Horn feels obsessed with the need to find Silk, the missing hero of his people. Silk led his followers to the planets Blue and Green, but vanished not long afterward. Now Horn believes it is his lot in life to search the vast universe in order to locate the lost legend and savior of his people.

As Horn battles with monsters and visits strange societies on weird planets including that, which might be Urth of the dying red sun, he discovers an interesting power that he possesses. In a nanosecond or less, Horn can travel between his home planet of Blue and another world Green that Silk safely led his people to settle on. As Horn moves back and forth between the two planets, his body changes with each transport until his own family fails to identify him as Horn because he now looks more like Silk.

Anyone who has followed science fiction over the past two decades will probably agree that Gene Wolfe belongs on the short list of the top three genre writers. His second novel in “The Book of the Short Sun” is a brilliant tale that although a transition book pays homage to the diversity of the universe. Using eloquent and intelligent prose, Mr. Wolfe states nothing is new under the solar umbrella. Anyone who has not read Mr. Wolfe before will want to read the first book ON BLUE’S WATERS while impatiently waiting for the next novel RETURN TO THE WHORL. Newcomers and some of us old-timers will also return to the related “Book of the New Sun” and “Book of the Long Sun” series that prove Mr. Wolfe deserved his Life Achievement and other awards.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner